


to the moon and back

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Tumblr Prompt Responses [3]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M, and 404, mentions of doug kendall, mentions of taking of dispatch, not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Maddie remembers, before Daniel died, how her dad would press his finger against his nose and then hers, and then eventually, Buck’s tiny baby nose, softly brushing her own finger over her little girl's nose as she sleeps. She remembers how he’d look at each of them with a grin on his face, before he’d say, “I love you so much more than just to the moon and back.”.Or the five times Maddie almost said I love you to Chimney but couldn't and the one time she did.
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Tumblr Prompt Responses [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2129619
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	to the moon and back

_ “I love you also means I love you more than anyone loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that no one loves you, or has loved you, or will love you, and also, I love you in a way that I love no one else, and never have loved anyone else, and never will love anyone else.” - Jonathan Safran Foer _

* * *

It’s the morning after the night before, the morning sun shining through a crack in the curtains as she lies on her side with her head resting on his shoulder, her fingers lightly tracing over the tattoo on his chest. It means ‘love’, that was what he had told her the first time she had asked. Her heart feels full and the words linger on the tip of her tongue and she remembers just throwing them out without a second thought when she was a teenager. She told her little brother that she loved him every single day, she’d drop to the floor after school and remind their dog that she loved him too, she’d tell her best friend that she loved her and her high school boyfriend that she loved him. Three  _ simple _ words with barely any thought behind them. 

Maddie snuggles a little more into his side, hooking her leg over his as she lets out a small sigh. Her fingers continue to dance over his tattoo, lips tracing along the crook of his neck as she takes it all in. Chimney overwhelms her with so much joy and she  _ feels _ complete and utter love for him. But feeling it and saying it are two completely different things. Now, those words are intertwined with Doug and she hates it. Those three words that had once been so simple were now something she remembered as a defence mechanism, they’d just slip from her lips over and over again in the hopes that it would placate him and whatever would come next. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t but now, saying those three, once simple words out loud causes her heart to beat a little faster and the tension to grow in her chest and in her stomach.

But there are other ways to tell him how she feels for him. There are other words. Things she can say to him a hundred times over about how he makes her feel safe, when she had once thought that wasn’t possible and how he leaves her breathless and her knees weak. Gravity seems to tether her to him as she dives herself impossibly closer to his body as his arm wraps a little tighter around her as though he wants to feel her naked body against his, the two of them just laying there and thinking about all that could have been. 

When her eyes fall to a close, she can feel the gun pressed against her chest, trying to hide her panic as she looked into the eyes of a man she was so certain wouldn’t shoot her. Maddie had looked evil in the eyes more than once, she had been married to evil for so long and Greg wasn’t  _ evil.  _ Misguided, desperate, greedy but she had been so certain that he wouldn’t kill her but still, when the thought crossed her mind, Chimney had been the first person she had thought of and then her brother and how she had to fight to go home to both of them. Chimney’s hand gently massages her shoulder from his slightly awkward position, her eyes opening once more as she tilts her head to look at him. 

She wants to relish every second of being in his arms, of feeling his body against hers. She never wants this moment to end and she wishes she could convey that in words. Instead, she smiles at him, lifting herself up enough to litter kisses along his jawline before she finds herself hovering over him. Their noses brush together, his smile bright when their eyes meet, “I love you.” He whispers and her heart swells before her response is to brush her lips along the bridge of nose, peppering kisses over his face until their lips meet. The kiss lingers, until she pulls back, sitting up so she can place both of her hands on his chest, just observing him for a moment. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy.” He knows the implications behind those words, their eyes meeting, both of them grinning at each other as both of his hands settle on her thighs, thumbs brushing against the bare skin until their lips meet again. 

* * *

If love were a place, it would be Chimney’s arms. 

Maddie blushes at her own thoughts, snuggling a little more into the warmth of his body. She’s entirely certain that neither of them have stopped smiling since she’d held up that second pregnancy test. It’s everything both of them had ever wanted and so much more. Dreams of being a parent long forgotten by trauma and history. They’d decided on having the discussion  _ someday,  _ but the universe had other plans and Maddie isn’t sure she has ever felt happier than she does right then. 

They’re going to have a baby and those three magical words that Chimney had once told her he would say enough for the both of them, have fallen from his lips at least half a dozen times then and they linger in her own head, stuck in her throat. Her heart aches at the memories associated with saying it loud but right then, it’s easy to get lost in the way Chimney’s fingers dance along her bare stomach. 

The tears of pure joy haven’t stopped shimmering in Chimney’s eyes and the butterflies in her stomach haven’t stopped since they’d found out. They’re having a baby. She keeps repeating those words in her head over and over again. She and Chimney were going to be parents. Chimney gently pushes on her shoulder, until she’s lying on her back, his lips brushing down her body until he settles on her stomach, peppering soft kisses around her belly button. “I love you.” He whispers, once more and she opens her mouth to say it back, feeling as though she should be able to because for once, this situation isn’t laced with memories of a life that once was. 

It hurts, it physically hurts, but Chimney is still smiling at her as though she is everything good in the world and she can’t quite get over how amazingly full of love and joy it makes her feel. Instead of those words, she settles on running her fingers through her hair as she lets out a deep sigh, “I don’t even feel scared.” She whispered, “I just… I know that this wasn’t planned, I know that we didn’t expect this but there is no one in the world I would rather do this with.” 

His lips press back against her stomach with a smile, “I cannot wait to meet our little human.” 

There’s that feeling again - complete and utter joy and safety as his hands reach for both of hers whilst he settles his head against her stomach and she can imagine him doing this when their baby is big enough to kick her foot against his cheek, tears in her eyes before she laughs for no reason other than the amount of love she feels for him and their life together right then. 

* * *

This is the right thing to do, Maddie knows that. She knows that he has to leave and she knows that he will come back but it's not knowing how long it will be until she can feel his lips against hers again. It’s not knowing how much time will pass before she feels his hand in hers, before he presses his face against her stomach and talks to their growing baby. Her heart aches for a different reason than usual today and the tears in her eyes are no longer from happiness but the knowledge that, for an undetermined period of time, she’s going to be alone. 

He’s not even walked out of the door yet and she misses him already. 

It’s the  _ right _ thing to do, it’s the only thing to do. Unfortunately, in the midst of a global pandemic that they barely know anything about, it’s too dangerous for their unborn child. It’s not an easy decision but it’s one that has to be made and it almost makes her laugh because this is the closest she and Chimney had been. She’s  _ just _ moved in and now he’s moving out and Albert is moving back in and he’s not even walked out of the door yet and she already misses him. 

Maddie bites down on her trembling bottom lip in an attempt to stop the tears from falling because Chimney already feels enough guilt and she doesn’t want to add to that load. She gulps when his hands fall to her stomach, neither of them wanting to say goodbye, not when everything had seemed so good. The universe must be laughing at them; giving them something so beautiful and so perfect that would tear them apart. If she wasn’t pregnant, they’d have probably ended up moving in together just so they could see each other. 

“I love you.” He frowns, and looks down at where his hands are, “Both of you.” Her mouth opens, as it always does, to repeat the words back to him but they just won’t come. They’re stuck in her throat and for even a fleeting moment, it’s as though she’s right back in Hershey, begging her husband to stop, promising him that she loves him over and over again until peace returns in the Kendall household. 

Instead, she forces a smile on her lips and presses a hand against his cheek, taking him in as the tears start to fall before she can stop them. “It’s not forever.” She whispers back, mostly trying to convince herself because the future is uncertain right now and she’s only ten weeks pregnant. She thinks about how she’s going to see their baby for the first time in two weeks, alone. She thinks about the possibility of feeling their baby kick for the first time without him there to share in that joy. Her heart drops when she thinks about how her body will change and he won’t be here to see it. 

It hurts. It hurts so much and she wishes she could tell him in those three words that she loves him. But she presses her lips against his in lieu of words, their tears mingling as both of her hands press to either side of his face and it reminds her, heartbreakingly, of when she had walked out of his apartment over a year ago and told him it was only a moment. This was only a moment, too. Filled with the same unbridled unknowing, kissing him until the burning in her chest forces her to pull away. 

“I love you.” He repeats and she nods her head, turning away from him because she’s not sure she can stand to watch him leave, closing her eyes as tightly as she can until the sound of the door shutting echoes through the apartment and she’s forced to look around. 

Chimney was her home, living in this apartment without him felt… empty. 

* * *

Maddie is exhausted; her parents had been in LA for two days and already, she is filled with more regret than she could ever have truly imagined. She doesn’t say goodbye to them after Buck had stormed out and Maddie realised what a mistake she had made in even inviting them in the first place. A huge part of her had thought that maybe, just maybe, they would have seen that she had lived a good life without them. They had clocked out of parenting the moment Daniel had died, Maddie had practically raised herself after that and even when they had rejected her and cut her off from the family, Maddie had felt a small form of relief. She didn’t have to fight for their attention anymore, she didn’t have to pretend. Even when she had left him, she hadn’t run to them or phoned them, too terrified of the ‘I told you so’. And then she found out she was pregnant and a part of her, a part she hadn’t felt in such a long time or allowed herself to feel, wanted her parents. 

She had reached out, beyond her better judgement, laced mostly with the loneliness and isolation she had felt from anyone and everyone she loved in LA. Their visit had been nothing short of a disaster though. The constant reminder that she had disappointed them, that she and Buck were never the children they wanted. No, they wanted Daniel. He was  _ perfect _ . Nothing she and her brother could have ever done would be good enough and they had made that much clear from the moment they had walked through the door. 

Maddie knows that secrets have a hard time staying buried, no matter how much time has passed and what good intentions there are behind it. All she had ever wanted to do was protect her brother and now… she’s right back in Hershey feeling alone and tired. At least until Chimney wraps his arms around her, his lips pressed against her cheek before he pulls her onto his lap and even for a fleeting moment, she feels as though, as long as she has him on her side, maybe everything will be okay. 

She knows that he’s hurting, too, the knowledge that her childhood trauma was so much more complex than she had ever cared to admit to before it came spilling from her lips. The moment her brother’s name was uttered, she couldn’t stop. A twenty-nine year secret came pouring from her until she had cried herself to sleep and then… then she had wanted to forget. But these things have a way of coming out and she should have known that eventually, Buck would find out the truth. 

She buries her face in Chimney’s neck, arms wrapping tightly around him as sobs rack her body until it feels as though she can’t breathe anymore. When her eyes open, she’s no longer on the couch, sitting in Chimney’s lap, but in bed with his chest pressed up against her back, his arms wrapped tightly around her. It’s been a while since she had cried herself to sleep, and her body is paying the price. 

He senses she’s awake without needing to look at her, lips pressing against the back of her neck before the tears start to fall again. She’d lost her older brother thirty years ago but now it feels as though she’s lost her little brother, too and she has no idea if he’ll ever forgive her. The overwhelming grief hits her all at once, the knowledge that she’s finally  _ allowed _ to remember the childhood she had before, the parents they were before. She thinks about how Daniel would be just a few years shy of Chimney in age and she wonders how differently her life would have turned out if he’d still been alive, if her parents had gone through hers and Buck’s childhood being the people she had known  _ before. _

“It’s going to be okay.” Chimney whispers, over and over again until it starts to feel as though she can believe it because as much as she needs Buck, too and as much as she wants her little girl to grow up with her uncle in her life, knowing she’s not completely alone eases some of the burden. A weight has been lifted from her shoulders, perhaps unfairly shared with the two men in her life that she loves more than anything. “I love you so much, Maddie. I wish I could make it all better for you. I wish I could take it all away.” 

If it were possible to love him any more than she already did, she’d be falling even deeper down that hole right then. The contrasts from her life before and now are more obvious than ever. Doug had enjoyed her pain, he’d enjoyed her loneliness and her need to lean on him because he was all she had. Chimney… he always wanted more for her. He wanted for her to be surrounded by as much love and joy as she possibly could. She finds it in his arms, she feels it in the way he brushes his lips against the back of her neck and she wants to tell him she loves him. She wants to say those words out loud but suddenly, it’s not Doug she sees when she’s thinking of those three words but Daniel. 

The forever ten year old boy who taught her how to ride a bike and how to throw a good punch when Billy in first grade had pulled her hair. She sees him when she closes her eyes, feels his pinky locking with hers as he grins at her and promises her that he’ll be back soon. She tells him she loves him and she looks at their baby brother and she says it for him, too, because he’s not old enough to speak yet. And Daniel never comes back. 

Instead of those three words, she manages the choke out, “Promise me you’ll never leave?” Her chest practically gasping for air at the thought of ever having to say goodbye to the man she adores so much. 

“Maddie…” 

“Please, please promise me…” She knows it’s a lot to ask of him because leaving can’t be controlled and she knows her brother never would have left her behind if he’d had a choice but she needs to hear Chimney say it out loud as the panic starts to settle in and she moves her hands down on top of his, digging her nails into the skin as she waits.

“I promise.” He whispers, “I’ll stay as long as I can, as long as you’ll have me and I will always,  _ always _ love you.” 

Her eyes are tightly closed, tears escaping still as she tries to find the air to breathe, her chest feeling as though it’s being crushed, holding onto his hands a little tighter, “Say it again.” And he does. At least ten times over until she finds herself being pulled back into another uncomfortable nightmare, those words she so longs to say, still lingering in the air. 

* * *

Watching Chimney hold their daughter is a feeling she doesn’t think she can ever describe. It’s love. It’s definitely love but it’s something so much more than that. So much deeper and heavier. There aren’t enough words in the dictionary or profound adjectives that could ever describe how she feels when she’s watching him smile down at their beautiful daughter. 

Her heart feels as though it’s going to burst from her chest, an invisible string tied to the two Han’s standing next to her bed as she watches them. Tears of pure joy fill her eyes, a smile on her face whilst Chimney sings a Korean lullaby to their daughter, that his mom used to sing to him. She’d always known he would be a wonderful father but thinking it and seeing it is two completely different things and right then, all she sees is a man so completely and utterly enamoured with this little life they’d created from their love for each other. 

Amelia Joy Han. 

She has a flock of black hair that sticks up, completely unruly, just like her father’s. Her eyes are his, which in turn, are his mother’s, she has the tiniest nose and the chubbiest cheeks and both Maddie and Chimney are so entirely certain they could stare at her all day, every day, basking in the glory that was their love for her and each other. 

Maddie wants to say it out loud, she wants to tell him how much she loves him, she wants to say it in those exact words but something stops her and she wishes she knew what because… it’s how she feels, it’s all she feels when she looks at him and she wants to be able to say those words to him and memorise his face when she does. She wants to see his kind eyes, and his beautiful smile, and feel his gentle touch when those three once simple but now impactful words fall from her lips for the first time. 

Despite that, she sits back in her bed and reaches her arms out for her daughter, grinning when she’s placed in her arms barely a few seconds later. Maddie remembers, before Daniel died, how her dad would press his finger against his nose and then hers, and then eventually, Buck’s tiny baby nose, softly brushing her own finger over her little girl's nose as she sleeps. She remembers how he’d look at each of them with a grin on his face, before he’d say “ _ I love you so much more than just to the moon and back.”  _

Maddie smiles at the memory that no longer causes her heart to ache, a photograph of Daniel sitting next to her as she proudly holds Buck in her arms now pride of place in their living room. They speak of him often, she remembers him more and more every day, things she had once forgotten, little bits of knowledge he’d passed onto her that she wants to share with her daughter from his ten short years. “To the moon and back.” She whispers out loud, looking from Amelia to Chimney, before she presses her lips against his cheek and takes a breath. 

“I love you, too.” He mumbles, his smile wide and the tears tracing down his face. “I love both of you.” 

* * *

Maddie hates public proposals. 

She can remember Doug getting down on one knee in the middle of her graduation ceremony, somehow managing to make the whole day about himself and about them, when she’d only wanted to celebrate the event with her friends. She hadn’t seen that for what it was at the time, but now, looking back… she really hates public proposals. She hates the social pressure, people watching, people waiting for an answer, the humiliation, the assumption.  _ Everything.  _

But this is different. At least, that’s what she tells herself as she stands in the spot she has stood in twice before. Her heart thumps uncomfortably against her chest. It’s late at night, there’s not exactly many people around and this is about as public as she’s willing to go, knowing the 118 would be there to celebrate right along with them. It just felt important that she do this in this particular spot - the place she had asked him on a first date, despite how that had ended, she could remember her lips lingering on his cheek and the wide grin on his face. Then it became the place she had stood in as she asked him if they could have end their moment. The place that she would forever remember as their first kiss without the tears, just… laughter and joy and an overwhelming desire to feel that connection with him in a way she never knew she needed before. 

This spot was special.

His eyes meet hers from across the room before he walks towards her, a confused smile on his face, although he still seems happy to see her. Gravity wants to pull her towards him, she feels that tugging motion in her chest that just wants to hold him and wants to be held by him and she’s never felt love like it. Maddie remains in the spot she remembers though, exhaling a deep, long breath as she runs through everything she had wanted to say to him. She doesn’t have a ring, she thought it would be nice for something they could do together. But she does have words. Three words in particular she wants to say to him. 

Their six month old daughter is fast asleep in her uncle’s arms, a smug grin on his face because he’d played his own part in her proposal plan. “Maddie, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?” Of course he’s worried, she always phones or texts first, she always let him know when she’s popping by but she doesn’t linger on the concern in his voice as she nods her head and timidly steps forward. 

“I um,” She nervously glances behind her at her brother, who only rolls his eyes and gestures her forward with his head, forcing her to take a deep breath before she turns back to the man she knows will say yes, but just… getting the words out and making them sound good and right… it’s terrifying. “When it comes to me and you, I’ve always been better with actions than words.” Her cheeks flush and she smiles at him, “I was standing here when I asked you on a date and then when we decided to start our new chapter together, we were standing right here and… it was the happiest I had ever been. Obviously, since then, you’ve made me happier a thousand more times but that was special. That was… that was the beginning of us, of our family and I wanted to start our next chapter here, too.” 

There’s barely a gap between them now as she holds out both of his hands, her entire body trembling until his hands are in hers and she finds comfort in the soft movements of his thumbs brushing against her knuckles. “I love you.” The words fall from her lips for the first time in so long, aimed entirely towards him as she sees the confusion drop from his face, replaced by a slightly nervous but gleaming smile instead. She remembers, and not for the first time, how her dad would compare his love for his three children, before they became two, to the moon and the stars, a watery smile on her face as she tilts her head to look at Chimney. “My dad used to say that he loved us so much more than just to the moon and back and that’s what I think of when I think about you. I don’t know any other words to describe it, and I’d never remembered before until I was looking at you one day and… it hit me. I know it’s been a while since you first said those words to me and I know that you know that I’ve always felt this way about you but I wanted to say them to you. I need you to hear them.” 

He’s crying which automatically makes her own tears fall as she squeezes his hands tightly in her own, “That’s not the only reason I’m here though. Um, I uh… I’ve been thinking a lot about the past and the future and… what I want with you, with our family.” It’s with a tear filled smile that she laughs, breathing him in for just a moment, staring at this kind, beautiful, patient man that she has no idea what she would do without. There was a time that she hadn’t thought she could ever love again, that she would never be able to trust someone again but he’d opened her heart and her eyes and now, here she was, doing something she never thought she would be able to. Again. Because of him. For him. With him. “I love you,” The floodgates have opened and she’s not sure she’s ever going to stop saying those words aloud, “I love our life together. I love our family. I just love you and I know you know that already, I tell you a thousand ways other than those three words. I want to marry you, Howard Han. I want to be your wife, I want to be Mrs Buckley-Han, I want everything with you for the rest of our lives together because there is no one in this world who has ever made me feel the way you do.” 

The smile on his face just makes her impossibly fall even deeper in love with him, the gap between them barely there when he pulls her forward and she can barely breathe as they look at each other for just a moment. “There is nothing I want more in this world than to be your husband.” He finally whispers, nose brushing against hers, before his hands leave hers to settle on her hips. “I love you. I know I tell you every single day but it’s the truest, most wonderful feeling I have ever had. Loving you and ‘Melly is the easiest feeling in the world to me, like I was born for this, waiting for the two of you.” 

Their lips meet as her arms loop around his shoulders, both of them grinning like fools, laughing between breaths of air and Maddie, despite hating public proposals, doesn’t mind the cheers of the 118 from the balcony or the quiet laughter of her brother behind her as he holds his niece. There is no greater feeling in the world than being loved by Chimney and nothing better than the knowledge she’s going to be his wife one day soon.

“I love you.” She whispers, when their lips part and their foreheads touch, realising it’s no longer what it used to be. It’s not a goodbye to Daniel, it’s not the three simple words she had floated around to her friends in high school, it’s not the automatic response to an immediate threat it had been for a lot of her adult life. It’s just… how she feels for him and for their daughter and their beautiful family. 

Chimney’s eyes always give him away, as she looks into them right then, seeing nothing but pure love and joy for her and the life they have built together and will continue to build, “I love you, too.” He whispers, and she feels that family warmth rushing through her, reminding her that with him, she’s always home.


End file.
